Dumb As A Brick
by Mattk
Summary: The day after STD, Bonnie's life starts to change when she gets a challenge from an unexpected source.  Part of the Blood Bond Continuum.


Bonnie Rockwaller decided to sleep late on the worst day of her life. She wanted Connie and Lonnie to be out of the house by the time her mother asked her how the prom went. Mom could be fooled by a dreamy look and some vague happy sounds, but her sisters could smell weakness like the attack bitches they were.

Damn it! How had it happened? She'd finally won! Kim Possible had finally made a fatal social _faux pas_. Sure, she'd come back from slips that would have doomed anyone else before – damn her Little Miss Perfect social invulnerability – but dating the school's ultimate loser? When he was actually a loser, and not The Ron? There was no walking away from that. And yet she had. Not only had people not mocked, they'd actually _applauded_. And Bonnie herself had been left standing there pointing and laughing like the village idiot.

It was over. Kim Possible had won. There was no beating her. She'd taken Bonnie's knockout punch and just…shrugged it off. Any little victories Bonnie might score off her in the future were hardly worth considering.

Monday was going to be Hell on Earth.

As she was pondering all the humiliations waiting for her when the school week started again, she hardly noticed the doorbell ring. She paid even less attention to the mutter of voices from the direction of the front door. It was only when her mother called up the stairs that she finally took notice:

"Bonnie? Are you decent, Pumpkin?"

"Is she ever?"

"Now Lonnie, that's no kind of thing to say. Bon-Bon, honey! You have a guest!"

Bonnie didn't want to deal with a guest. There were only a few people she could think of who it could be, and she didn't particularly want to see any of them right now. But it was too late; footsteps were already coming up the stairs. Heavy footsteps. She knew who it was.

She pulled on a bathrobe and opened the door just as he was raising his hand to knock.

"Hello, Brick."

----

They decided to go for a walk, at Brick's suggestion. She'd been about to tell him to get the hell out, she wasn't going anywhere with him, not after last night, but he spoke first: "Do you really want to yell at me – especially about this – where your sisters can hear?"

How could someone so stupid be so smart?

The speed with which she got dressed and made up to the point she was willing to be seen in public would have surprised most of the people who knew her – it _did_ surprise Brick. But it was just a walk in the park, and the sooner she got Brick out of the house and away from her sisters, the safer she was.

They walked in silence for several long minutes. Finally, although she had started out intending to let Brick stew until he made the first awkward, weak-looking overtures, Bonnie broke the silence: "So do you intend to start the crawling back anytime soon?"

"In a minute," Brick said. Bonnie almost growled in frustration. Other than his stupidity, the thing that infuriated her the most about Brick was his total placidity. No matter how angry she got at him, no matter how hard she tried to get a reaction out of him, he stayed vaguely cheerful and amiable. Maybe he was being serious right now, but he was still immovable.

"I just wanted to ask a couple questions first," he continued.

"What, holding interviews now?" Bonnie demanded. "Am I auditioning for the part as Brick Flagg's girlfriend?"

Maybe Brick sensed that she was a second or two away from walking off, because he actually got a little urgent: "No, nothing like that! I just wanted to know something."

"What?" She snapped.

"Why did you go to the prom with me?" He asked.

"Duh, you asked me."

"Yeah, but why did you want to go with _me_?"

She held out one hand, as if holding something in it. "You, football captain," she said. Then she held out her other hand in the same way. "Me, cheerleader. Is this really that difficult?"

"Well, no," He said. "But what I guess I'm asking is if there isn't somebody _else_ you wanted to go with?"

She gave him a look that asked him, not _if_ he'd been dropped on his head as a baby, but how many times. "I'm not the one who wandered off with someone else," she snapped.

"No," he said. "But even when you were with me, we didn't get up and dance, we didn't do nothing. We just kinda sat there while you glared at Possible"

"And why does that make you think I wanted to be there with someone else?"

"Well…it means you were paying a lot more attention to someone who wasn't me."

Bonnie's eyes slowly went wide as understanding dawned. "Oh, you aren't thinking…"

Brick shrugged. "You act like I did when I was eleven or so, when I was just starting to like girls, but still thought I was supposed to think they were gross. Picking on her all the time, all those bumps and pushes – so you're talking to her and touching her without letting anyone know that you want to."

"This is dumber than I thought even you could be, Brick."

"Hey, it's 100 okay with me if you swing that way, Bonnie. I just want it…you know, out in the open."

Bonnie resisted the urge to scream in frustration. Barely. Wouldn't do to drop her image like that.

"You, of all people, should know that I'm _not_ a dyke."

Brick just shrugged again. "Could be denial."

Bonnie clenched her teeth. "Denial?"

"Yeah," Brick said. "But see, you don't _have_ to deny. People will understand. No shame in crushing on Possible."

Bonnie didn't resist her urge to scream in frustration this time. Her frustration was followed immediately by a moment of enormous satisfaction as Brick actually flinched away, staring at her as if he expected her to lunge for his throat.

Wise man. She wanted to right now.

And at least she'd finally gotten a non-placid reaction out of him.

So it was the she was able to make her next statement in total, pleasant-smiling calm: "Sorry, Brick. I don't know what kind of books you read – if you read – but I'm pretty sure that I know what kind of movies you watch, and I'm sorry to say that life just isn't like them. Every argument between two girls isn't going to lead into a catfight that leads to them realizing that they _like_ touching each other. Sometimes, hate is just hate."

"So…you hate Possible."

"_Now_ you're getting it."

"Then why do you waste so much time on her?"

Bonnie stared at him, dumbfounded. Brick's stupidity was reaching previously unsuspected depths. "_Because_ I hate her," she explained slowly. "Because I want to beat her."

"Is that any fun?" He asked.

She blinked. He had to be doing this on purpose. He was pretty slow, but he wasn't actually, you know, _challenged_ or anything. Well, she could play along, see where he was going with this. If he was doing this on purpose, then he'd actually thought about it – and she was curious what the result of all that effort could be. "It's fun when I win," she said.

"Well, yeah, winning is always good," He said. "But is it any fun to _do_? Did you have fun last night, sitting at the table and giving her the evil eye while she was out on the dance floor?"

"I…" She didn't have an answer for that.

"See, there are people I don't like. Even some on the team. So I stay away from them as much as I can. When we have to be together, I don't talk much. Seems to me that Possible is the same way: mostly, she just tries to go on with her life, unless you're busting her chops. Like last night – do you think she was even thinking about you when she was out on the floor dancing with that syntho-dude? And later, I bet she stopped thinking of you five seconds after you stopped pointing and laughing – as soon as she started dancing with Stoppable."

"Excuse me," Bonnie snapped. "She busts my chops plenty."

"Sure, but she doesn't spend so much of her time looking for chances to. She has other stuff to worry about."

"She'll find plenty of chances on Monday."

"She's not even going to remember you're alive on Monday. She and Stoppable will be too busy looking for someplace private to get into each other's pants."

Bonnie snorted. "You watch. I bet she'll find the time somewhere."

"Okay, what'll you bet?"

"What?"

"You said you bet that she'll take enough time off from playing with Stoppable's dinky on Monday to give you crap. What'll you bet?"

"I didn't mean that literally," she said. She didn't bother to add "you cretin" out loud. Her tone said it all.

"Well, I did," He countered. "I bet that if you just leave Possible alone on Monday, don't say or do anything to her, she'll be too lost in her private paradise to even notice you're there."

"Stakes?" She challenged, waiting for him to name the sexual favor that was too freaky to even try asking for.

"I win," He said, "You stop wasting so much of your life on someone you hate and start paying more attention to things you actually like."

That was a big bet. She almost would have preferred the sexual favor – at least then she would have had an excuse to turn the bet down without looking weak: "I mean, come on, what a pervert…"

Instead, he'd trapped her into his little Bonnie-improvement program. Well, let's see how _he_ handles high stakes.

"And if I win," she said. "You come crawling back to me. Literally. In public. And no guarantee that I'll say yes, either."

"Done." Brick held out his hand.

Bonnie shook it. Why not? The stakes were high, but this was one bet she had no doubt of winning.

Monday, 5:30 PM

Cheerleading practice was over, and Bonnie Rockwaller walked out of it in a stunned haze.

She'd thought Saturday had been the worst day of her life. It hadn't held the top spot for long, though – look how it had already been replaced.

She'd lost the bet. Possible had been too busy swooning into the Loser's arms – and vice versa, disturbingly enough – to notice the world, let alone her. They'd only taken breaks from the cuddling to eat and run cheerleading practice. Somehow, they managed to keep doing it even while talking with Monique and Felix.

That wasn't the bad part, though. She'd come to school braced to be humiliated, and instead, she'd been ignored. It made her realize something terrible:

She had never been Kim Possible's "rival".

Possible's life didn't revolve around their "competition", like her own had – especially not now, but maybe not ever. All she'd ever been to the redhead was a pest, something to be dealt with when she became annoying. Maybe she'd stung hard a few times, but she'd still never been more than a pest. When she thought about all the time and effort and resources she'd put into the competition that had only ever existed on her side – the set-ups, the schemes, the weeks she'd spent as cheer captain; always needing to have the right outfit and the right boyfriend and say the right things to the seniors (the _right_ seniors, anyway) and never showing a moment of weakness…

And worse, when she thought of the things she'd sacrificed to achieve ultimate popularity (_she thought of a quiet, flat-chested girl with mousy-brown hair and huge glasses_) when Possible had refused to jettison her loser friend and had come out ahead in the end…

She felt like crying. Yes, crying seemed like a very good idea right now. Not here, not at school where it could damage her rep. Not at home, where Connie and Lonnie might catch her. Maybe on the way home? Yes. That was good – that was right. She could cry herself out and then fix her makeup so her sisters wouldn't know.

She was hurrying out the door when the crowd-noises behind her changed. There was laughter; some mocking applause; and loud noises of disbelief, including one familiar voice saying, "That is sick and wrong!"

She didn't care what was going on, but she turned around anyway. Both high school and popularity were about alertness.

Once she saw the source of the commotion, her jaw dropped and she could only stare.

Brick.

Was coming through the crowd.

Toward her.

On his hands and knees.

She wanted to flee, but she was frozen with shock. All she could do is stand and stare as he busily crawled through the crowd to her feet.

Her shock broke when he reached her; she dropped to one knee, grabbed his shirt, and dragged him up to face her. "What are you _doing_?" She demanded, her voice a raw whisper.

Against all logic, Brick had a sunny smile on his face. "Crawling back," He said.

"But you _won_!"

He shrugged. "Yeah, but I figured you needed it anyway."

Suddenly, there were tears standing in Bonnie's eyes for a very different reason. Not that she could let anyone see those, either.

That was when she committed the first totally uncalculated, unconcerned-with-appearances act she'd committed in a long time:

She pulled Brick in for a kiss.

Then she dragged him to his feet and led him out the door.

And she didn't care about the hoots and hollers that followed after them.

----

Her mood was much more pensive in the car as Brick drove her home, and they covered most of the distance in silence. They spoke only once, when Bonnie asked, "Won't this hurt your rep?"

Brick shook his head. "Nah. I'll just say I lost a bet. Me and the guys have done crazier things."

"Like the time you shaved your head?"

"Uh…yeah."

She got the impression that head-shaving barely scratched the surface. That was okay – she didn't want to scratch that particular surface any more than she had to.

When they arrived at her house, he pulled into the driveway and killed the engine, but neither of them moved. There were still things to say. After another moment of uncomfortable silence, they started to say them.

"I'll start telling people about the bet I lost tonight," Brick offered. "I think some people didn't think it was funny, and I don't want them to be mad at you."

Bonnie shrugged. "I'm used to people being mad at me." Then she paused. She was afraid of the answer to her next question, but she had to ask: "Should I tell people that I turned you down because I didn't want to be part of your bet?"

Brick's face fell. "You're turning me down?"

"Aren't you hanging with Monique now?"

"Nah," He shook his head and waved the question away. "I'm pretty, but I'm dumb. That's fine to dance with, but not to date. Not for her, anyway."

Bonnie gasped. "She said that to you?"

"She found a way to say it nicely – 'you're not my type' kinda stuff. I don't mind. Why are you so freaked? You say much worse."

That was nothing but the truth.

"Yeah…about that…"

He said nothing, watching her expectantly.

"Paying off this bet is going to be _hard_," she said at last. "It's going to feel like...caving. Like I'm surrendering to the enemy."

"Who's surrendering?" He asked.

Now she was confused. One of the dumbest people at Middleton High (who didn't arrive on the short bus, anyway) was confusing her. "But – "

"If she gives you shit, you give her shit. Any football player'll tell you that you don't just stand there and wait for the other guy to hit you. I'm just asking you not to give her shit for a little while, to give _her_ a chance to not give _you_ shit."

Bonnie was amazed that he could work his way through a thought that convoluted, but apparently he wasn't done _yet_.

"I'm not asking you to like her, or be nice to her. Just…you know, start worrying more about what Bonnie Rockwaller likes than what'll piss off Kim Possible."

She thought about that for a moment. "You know, it's funny…I know I like cheerleading, but other than that, so many of the things I like…sitting at the Seniors table, ordering ahead at lunch, skiing, being the first in line for the latest fashions at Club Banana…are so mixed up in pissing off Kim Possible that it's going to take me a while to figure out which is which."

"Well, there's one thing that you told me you like that I can't see how it could be about pissing off Possible."

"What's that?"

"I didn't shower after practice."

A slow grin spread across her face. "And damned if you aren't glistening…"

It was twenty more minutes before she went inside. And although her sisters mocked her for being all sweaty and stinky from practice, she was in far too good a mood to even notice them.


End file.
